It’s Friday morning and I have about three really important things that I want to accomplish today. Things that I feel are really important and that I feel “called to do.”

I’m talking about the types of things that if I were to ask myself at the end of the day, “Did I do, today, what matters most?” The answer would be yes if I got one, two or even all three of these things accomplished.

The cool thing is that my calendar is WIDE OPEN and free from any commitments today.

However, before I get started on the first of these three projects, I want to go through my email and get to Inbox Zero. My goal is to finish responding to all emails by 11:30 AM. That’s about an hour from now.

I’ve been working on my email for about 20 minutes now and I’ve spent most of this time time explaining to a friend why I’m not going to be able to hop on Skype within the next few days to “catch up” and sending pre-written messages that explain why I’m not able to devote much time answering these technical “quick questions” via email.

There are days where I am a true ninja in the art form of “saying no.” Other days, that people pleasing side of me creeps up and temps me to say yes.

Here’s what I know.

I know that I have several big projects to work on between and the end of the year.

I know that I just returned from a trip to Colorado where I spoke at a conference and held a one day business mastermind.

I know that this coming Thursday is Thanksgiving, we have a guest staying with us for the next week and there are all sorts of family commitments.

I know that immediately following Thanksgiving, our family is hopping on a plane to Orlando to spend eight days on a family vacation.

I know that there is very little work week time between our return from Orlando and the Christmas holiday.

I know that during the first week of January, I’m going to Nashville for a one day personal mastermind event.

I know that on January 12th, I launch another four week session of Podcasting A to Z, which I have to market between now and then to fill up that class.

I know that just one week after that A to Z session ends, Stephanie and I are going on a seven day cruise with Dan & JoAnne Miller, Mike & Gail Hyatt, Michael Stelzner and his entire family as well as a large group of other like-minded folks.

That’s just my calendar into the third week of February. I have a nice yearly calendar where I can see how many work days I have between each of these events listed above. I know that my time is extremely limited when it comes to working on the most important projects that I know that I should be focused on. Projects that are most in line with what I am called to do and that will allow my work to benefit the greatest number of people with the most powerful amount of impact for each person influenced.

Here’s what else I know.

I know that I am committed to spending quality time with my wife.

I am committed to spending quality time with each of my three children.

I am committed to creating awesome memories with intentional family time moments.

I am committed to eating healthy and to working out, being intentionally physically active, six days a week.

I’m committed to going to bed early and waking up early each morning.

I’m committed to reading on a daily basis to keep my mind fresh with new ideas and inspiration.

I’m committed to journaling and creating content that inspires others.

If you put all that into the calendar over the next three months, it is very clear that I am not going to be able to commit to quick calls or Skype chats and to answering the myriad of “quick questions” that flood my email inbox each day.

Is there a temptation to keep them there and try to get a response to some of these folks when I have some free time? Yes. That temptation is there. However, I know, based upon my commitments listed above, if I say yes to all these emails, I going to have to start saying no to one, or more likely many, of the commitments I have above.

Knowing what you will say yes to helps make it easier to give a no response to things that you simply do not have the time to do.

I heard Andy Stanley once said… “When you get to a certain level of success, you’ll have to come to the place where you do, for some, what you wish you could do for everyone.”

Each day, I try to pick about five or so of these “quick questions” and give them a carefully crafted response that I hope will help them take what they are doing to the next level.

For everyone else, I send them the following message.

(BEGIN QUOTED PRE-WRITTEN QUICK QUESTION RESPONSE)

Thank you so much for reaching out to me!

I receive between 100+ emails each day and most of them contain quick questions just like this.

One of my most valuable resources is my Podcast Answer Man Podcast found athttp://PodcastAnswerMan.com. There are over 300 episodes of this show and I do take questions that are submitted in audio form, as long as the question, and its answer, would apply to multiple people. The voice mail feedback hotline number is 859-795-4067. Or you could record the question as an .mp3 file and attach it to an email sent to [email protected] I do ask folks to limit questions to one per call. I do get about 15 questions submitted for the show each week. And as you might imagine, not every question makes it into the show.

If you feel like you’d like to work with a podcast consultant, one-on-one, I have a referral network of hand selected consultants that I trust. Their rates start about $150/hr. If you would like me to refer you to someone you can work with, please just reply and ask for a referral.

I hope you don’t find this too off putting. I am just trying to make sure that I maintain my ability to keep up with the other clients, students and projects that I have already committed to and make sure that those who contact me, via email, get a timely response.

Sincerely,

Cliff

Ps. The best offer that I have to offer is my Podcasting A to Z course. I encourage you to check out http://PodcastingAtoZ.com to see the full details of what I offer during this four week course. The greatest benefit of the course is that it provides a place where you can ask as many questions as you want during a four week period of time, and I am committed to answering every single question.

(END QUOTED PRE-WRITTEN QUICK QUESTION RESPONSE)

If you’ve ever received this pre-written response from an email that you have sent to me, I hope this post will help give some insight as to the reason why it was sent.

Okay. So I’m now headed back to my email inbox. I need to paste that, and a few other, pre-written response to about 15 of the 38 other emails in my inbox. The rest are all business action items that I need to handle.

After that, I’ll close my email for the day and only focus on the three projects that I have planed to work on this afternoon.

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